CEDEM 2009 highlights

If you missed CEDEM CEE 2009 in Prague on Sept 23-24, you didn’t just miss out on a great networking opportunity and a great party – you missed out on some of the most open and frank discussions the conference has ever provoked. Here’s just three excerpts:

–“It’s a tsunami of distress that’s rolling across Europe. It’s certainly rolled across the UK and it’s coming your way. It will hit the banks whether they want to accept it or not, because the decision generally is not theirs.”– Guy Barker (Palmer Capital Partners)

–“I don’t think we’ve reached the bottom of the market yet. The banks haven’t really accepted that they’ve got issues in their own portfolios at the moment and in my view they haven’t sat down and tried to work through them. We’re beginning to see the first few distressed sales coming up. By distressed I’m talking about buying a good asset in a double-digit yield, because loan repayments are coming up and if that loan is not repaid banks will foreclose.” – Christopher Zeuner (JER Partners)

–“Risk was factored out of investment decisions in 2006 and 2007, and frankly it’s insane that anyone would pay the same yield in Warsaw as they would in Hamburg. It’s insane that they’d pay the same price in Romania as they would in Poland.”-Chris Bennett (Europa Capital).

Dear Mr Bloggs, notwithstanding your last comment, we note that you seem to have a knack, even an interest, in airing your views. If you would like to do so on a more regular basis, drop us a line. Needn’t be from your usual email either, at least for starters.